Well-known media personality Irna van Zyl will be publishing her highly anticipated debut thriller with Penguin Random House in July 2016. The book will be published in Afrikaans and English simultaneously.

Van Zyl, who has had an illustrious 30-year career in media, recently stepped down as an executive director at New Media Publishing, which she co-founded and which publishes amongst others Woolworths Taste, Visi, Golf Digest, Finweek and Eat Out. In 1985 she was appointed as chief sub-editor at Die Burger, the first woman to occupy the position, and she has worked as editor for Afrikaans magazines De Kat and Insig. She made her writing debut in 1995 with a collection of short stories, Grootmensspeletjies.

Van Zyl’s thriller is set on the coast near Hermanus in the fictitious town of Grootbaai, shark-cage-diving capital of the world, and features oddball detective Storm van der Merwe. Storm drives a beetle, she’s stocky and smart, and she is thrown into the deep end when a body minus an arm washes up on the beach. It doesn’t take her long to realise that the situation at Grootbaai is even more dangerous than shark-cage diving – minus the cage.